Jack's Birth

On Monday morning, March 21, around 7:45am, as Maria was preparing to go her 38 week (and 6 days) doctor’s appointment, she felt something funny. Feeling something out of the ordinary was not new to Maria – pregnancy is full of surprises and extraordinary happenings to the body that a woman is not accustomed to – but this morning was different. She felt a slight leak, like maybe her water had broke; however, the leak was so light she didn’t believe that was the case. Departing the house around 8am, Maria took the Metro up to her doctor’s office in Chevy Chase. This was the first doctor’s appointment in a few weeks that Michael would not go to Maria with, in hopes that something good would happen. As luck would have it, on the way to the doctor’s office on the Red Line near Woodley Park en route to Chevy Chase, she knew something was definitely going on. Her small leak was becoming a steady leak, and she could not control it. By the time she arrived at the doctor’s office, she had a strong feeling that her water had broken, and Maria was very excited.

Her first appointment at the doctor’s office was with a sonogram technician, who right away confirmed that her fluid levels were dramatically low. Whether her water had broken or not, Maria knew she would be induced that day because of the low fluid levels. After the sonogram, Maria met with a doctor and it was confirmed: it was go time.

Michael was at work, and after receiving an email from Maria about the low fluid level, he began to pack up his desk. About 10 minutes later, Maria sent another email while still in with the doctor with a simply subject line “Water’s Broke,” and he was off like the wind. Obeying “most” of DC’s traffic laws (Mike never obeys all traffic laws, or at least he didn’t before the baby was born – that will change now), Michael raced home to pick up Skylos to deliver him to City Dogs Day Care, where he is staying while Jack is delivered and in the hospital. After dropping the dog off , Michael picked up Maria at a Starbucks near her doctor’s office where she was having a final  pre-delivery meal and they were at Sibley Memorial Hospital about 5 minutes later checking in.

At about 11am, Maria was officially admitted to the hospital and assigned to a beautiful delivery room that was very spacious and had great natural lighting. It was a comfortable room to spend the day in. After meeting with our excellent nurse, Sarah, and Maria’s doctor, Dr. Muangman, it was determined that Maria was dilated about 3 centimeters, but because she was not having strong, regular contractions, she would be given pitocin, a drug to speed up the contractions and the delivery process. For a while, there wasn’t a lot going on. Maria and Michael relaxed and watched episodes of Arrested Development on Maria’s laptop. After a few episodes, the contractions began to become more regular and much stronger, and soon Maria was in “active labor,” and began to practice breathing exercises, stretches, and squats with Michael to help relieve the pain.

Maria resting while in "early labor"

 

After a few hours of “active labor,” Dr. Muangman found that Maria was only dilated an additional centimeter. This indicated that while her contractions were very strong (and very painful), she was probably too tense (because of the crazy intense pain) to dilate quickly. As a result, to help alleviate the pain and to relax Maria’s body so her labor could progress, Maria was given an epidural . This is when the labor process really took off. At this point, Maria no longer was able to get up and move around and she could feel no pain, so while her body began moving the labor along very quickly, Maria and Michael couldn’t do much except watch more of the Bluth family and enjoy the day together. Soon, it was time for her to start pushing.

And push she did. The epidural was turned off so that she could feel pain again, which helped her push. For a few long hours, Maria summoned all her strength and pushed and pushed. Michael was at her side, encouraging her and keeping her hydrated with ice chips, and holding her legs as she pushed. Unfortunately, Jack wasn’t coming out. After a few intense hours of pushing and little progress, the doctor and the nurse began to discuss with us the option of delivery by cesarean. This was not something that either of us wanted, but Jack’s delivery appeared to be heading in that direction and we wanted to do what was right for the baby. Once it was decided that surgery was the best option for Jack’s safety, events really took off. Ultimately, the decision to go with a cesarean delivery was not really a decision at all; it had to happen. We later learned that Jack was in the occiput posterior position, which makes delivery hard if not impossible. Complicating that complication, Jack’s umbilical cord was around his neck, acting like a bungee cord drawing him back up after each push down by Maria. Maria could have pushed for another 12 hours and most likely would have made no progress.

Maria was quickly rushed back to the delivery operating room while Michael changed into scrubs. Dr. Muangman was going off shift and Dr. Engel was taking over as our main doctor, but we had built up such a great report with Dr. Muangman she decided to also help with delivery, so we were fortunate to have two of DC’s finest doctors delivery our son. The contrast between the quiet, now dark (it was after midnight), and comforting delivery room where we had spent the day and the last few hours pushing, against the intensely bright, white and active operating room could not have been more stark. The delivery room had largely been just Michael, Maria, nurse Sarah and occasionally Dr. Muangman. The OR had both Dr. Muangman and Dr. Engel who jointly performed the surgery, an anesthesiologist who monitored Maria and administered her drugs, a neonatal doctor and nurse standing by waiting for Jack, as well as a few additional nurses assisting each of the doctors. The room was a flurry of activity, noise and light; very different from what we had experienced all day.

Once in the OR, delivery happened very fast. Maria was given additional sedatives to numb her for surgery, and a large sheet was drawn up just below her chest to block her vision. Michael sat at her head to hold her hand and comfort her during the process. At 1:02am, the surgery began and at 1:07am, Jack was born. He was taken immediately to a neonatal doctor and nurse for examination, and after determining that he had 10 fingers, 10 toes and was a healthy and handsome young man, he was delivered to his father and Jack promptly stopped screaming as Michael sang to him “The Victors,” the University of Michigan fight song and the first song Jack would hear outside the womb. Soon, Maria was stitched up and we were back in the initial delivery room for Maria to recover and Jack to receive an additional examination, a bath, and be delivered to his mother for his first feeding. After a few hours in the delivery room, a little sleep for mom and baby and some paperwork for dad, Michael packed up the room and around 4am we moved to our private postpartum room in a different wing, and we’ve been here ever since. As we write this, it is about 5:30pm on Thursday. We arrived at Sibley nearly 80 hours ago. We are very much looking forward to going home, hopefully on Saturday and introducing Jack to Skylos, so they can become the best of friends.

A very late night feeding - Michael feeding Jack a little supplemental formula in addition to mom's milk